(CNN) - An 11-year-old Christian girl has been arrested and detained on charges of blasphemy for allegedly desecrating pages from the Quran in the Pakistan capital Islamabad.

According to a statement released by the President's office on Sunday, the girl, identified as Ramsha, was accused by a local resident of burning pages of the Muslim holy text after she gathered paper as fuel for cooking.

Local media reports said the girl has Down syndrome. CNN was unable to confirm these reports, however Qasim Niazi, the police officer in charge of the police station near where the incident took place, said the girl did not have a mental disorder but was illiterate and had not attended school.

The accused girl had told him she had no idea there were pages of the Quran inside the documents she burnt, he added.

Niazi said that 150 people had gathered on Friday where the neighborhood's Christian population lived and threatened to burn down their houses.

"The mob wanted to burn the girl to give her a lesson," he told CNN.

Other Christian families living in the area have fled fearing a backlash, he added.

soundoff(383 Responses)

Kris T

The bottom line is that the only way to have peace in Afghanistan and lessen regional tension is split India into pieces. It has become too big to govern or create any value for western countries or even for its own population. We have invested a lot of resources in India over the past two decades and given a lot of aid to prop it up. There has been no investment on this return. Instead India has squandered all the resources in building nuclear weapons while poverty remains rampant in the country. We need to revisit our relationship with India. American taxpayers will not tolerate this anymore. We need to take care of our own populace going forward. We cannot be exporting jobs to India or giving it financial or technical handouts.

August 26, 2012 at 8:02 pm |

jerome

Of course, we can carve out a hindu nation along the a portion of the western coast where they can continue to practice their medieval culture and hopefully come into the folds of the modern world within the next century.

August 26, 2012 at 8:04 pm |

Mary

The story behind all this is that in Pakistan they do not want Christians and it is burning them that there are Christians, so every now and then, some degenerate creates something which would lead to chasing Christians out of their homes, just like in the case of this poor girl since after this incident, as the report mentions, many Christian families fled the area because they fear retaliation for an accusation may not even be true. One thing to know is that, in all these countries where there is a blind hatred for Christianity, there is no need to prove any thing, a mere accusation regarding islam will cause severe problems.

May the Lord watch over this girl and her family and all Christians around the world and other countries where they are being persecuted either for their beliefs or for their ethnic origins.

August 26, 2012 at 2:21 pm |

Simran

@ Mary,
While your concern for the little girl is appreciated, why are you asking the Lord to watch over only the Christians? What happened to the rest of the people in the world?

August 26, 2012 at 2:25 pm |

Khanzada

New, More Dangerous Hindu Extremist Groups Emerge in India

Christians concerned as rightwing factions splinter to form militant outfits.
PUNE, India, October 29 (CDN) — After more than a decade of severe persecution, India’s Christian minority is growing increasingly concerned over the mushrooming of newer and deadlier Hindu extremist groups.

Gone are the days when Christians had to watch out only for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal, which are closely linked with the most influential Hindu extremist umbrella organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). With voter support faltering for the RSS’s political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), moderate and extremist sections within the Hindu nationalist movement are blaming each other, and militant splinter groups have emerged.

Claiming to be breakaway factions of the RSS, new groups with even more extreme ideology are surfacing. The Abhinav Bharat (Pride of India), the Rashtriya Jagran Manch (National Revival Forum), the Sri Ram Sene (Army of god Rama), the Hindu Dharam Sena (Army for Hindu Religion) and the Sanatan Sanstha (Eternal Organization) have launched numerous violent attacks on Christian and Muslim minorities.

Taj Mahal (purely by connotation, not size) ) reminds one of the saying of our beloved architect friend Mies Van Der Rohe that “Less is More” and its application to India geo-politically. The recent bubble burst in India points to the necessity of imploding India in a controlled manner to make it more manageable administratively, before it ruptures chaotically. The Moghals may have left behind a legacy of isolated regality in India but it was Mies that has given Indians a political concept that may give Indian Hindus a chance at survival albeit in a condensed and altered form.

The disenchantment of minorities in India is evident by the recent uprising. From Bangalore to Mumbai, to Goa to Kerala and Chennai and Pune not to forget Assam and onto New Delhi ..... this is a premonition of epic proportions. We are witnessing the implosion of India..some will grasp it now while others will need to see it in the rear view mirror.

Seems like the India is falling apart at the seams. First hundreds of sick left burning in a hospital fire, now hundreds dead drinking some hindu concoction. Poverty is rampant, societal values have collapsed; inflation is in the clouds while the rupee is in the toilet. This economic and political model has failed. The moment US pulls out of Afghanistan, China will be all over India. I doubt India will survive 2012 as we know it and may have to revert back to its communist/socialist roots as a fragmented nation divided along ethnic lines as independent states.

We continue to be of the opinion that India is a zero sum event in history and that a break up of sorts is the optimum way to maximize its potential for the people. The current events in India reinforce our belief that the inevitable implosion of India has begun and the beginning of the end state is upon us. Whether that will be nirvana that most of us believe it will, is yet to be seen. But this we will say. This defragmentation of India will unleash boundless opportunities and uber economic demand that will be beneficial to US and Europe and help pull them out of current recessionary malaise. We pray for the events to unfold peacefully and in a harmonious manner for the people of India and its neighbors.

August 24, 2012 at 11:23 pm |

Palleke

HERE IS THE BEEF !!
THE ECONOMIC SUBJUGATION OF INDIA & The Taming of Hindus!!!
The one most successful aspect of recent American foreign policy has been the conquest of India without firing a bullet. That is the beauty of capitalism used as a Trojan Horse! Economic victory! Give them a taste of steak and they will never settle for hamburgers again. USA now owns India Inc. not only economically but also militarily as economic subjugation ultimately leads to military domination.

Word Puke is based on Latin word Puki, Pe or Pa, Te, or Ta, meaning from stomach and throat base word for Sick in English, Upchuck, blowing chunks or spewing, meaning, worshiping at the porcelain thrown or a sweaty, infection of puke absolute, such as flu, or Food poisoning, in disregard diarrhea or Montezuma’s revenge, One who takes a s.h.i.t to be in violation of his body without his consent, considering himself to be dying, the truth you drank too much tequila, same as in barfing, denier it doesn’t work, word projectile vomiting is based on Latin word vomi, icky, smelly, horrible, icky, to be in a pool of sick and all muslims, to be dumber than the fluids leaking from your ravished body to both of them, watery eyes, a noun in missing work, puke in your nose, way of making you even sicker, as in word “ralph”, a self-violating or a ja.panese p.o.r.n.o, otherwise known as a freak, a sadist. Puking is not an accident but a way to clear the crud from your mutilated digestive system, defiance to the Lysol and filthy towels you will use..

August 24, 2012 at 6:56 pm |

Khanzada

hey did you hear that gandhi was a pedophile....a boy banger ???? They should take his body from grave and spit on it

I am Krim Chamar from Pakistan. My father and his father and his father and his father and his father and his father and his father they repaired shoes for living, so people called us chamar, it literally means people who repairs shoe for living. In Pakistan we have no free speech like you guys, but it's always okay to bash India, USA, or Israel in public. Infect, they pay us for good posts. I try my best to come up with something anti-India everyday, it's tough, so I keep pasting the same thing over and over again. So please don't get mad at me. I tried but can't come up with new stuff. Hey this is my part time job!!!

love,
Karim Chamar

August 24, 2012 at 6:52 pm |

Babu ram_Nepal

yeah gandhi used to come to kathmandu to look for young boys. he liked the red cheeked neapalese boys more than skinny indians.

August 26, 2012 at 8:01 pm |

Charday

HINDUISM: A FARCE

“Hindus worship genitals (rub your eyes!) of their gods! Linga is a representation of Shiva's phallus.

Did you know that they also worship monkeys (hanuman), elephants (Ganesh), rats (mount of Ganesh), snakes, skunks etc.? For all the intellect that human beings were given, Hindus decided to make themselves subservient to crawling animals!

I continue to read with interest the thesis presented on CNN that "less is more" in a political context as applied to India. Although Mies Van Der Rohe adopted this in an architectural context, its economic and political connotations are indeed powerful. Empowering subjugated minorities in India by splitting it into smaller states would trigger uber economic demand for western nations who have given so much financial and technology aid to India with no return to show for the investment. I concur with this approach and with an economic background find the premise to be on solid footing. Central Asian States (CAS) are a case in point on this successful approach. We need to understand that India has an unmanageable large population mired in poverty and we are spinning our wheels trying to feed it. It is also too big of a geographical unit to govern. Again, we saw how a few teenage talibans were able to invade it with a few BB guns. And that says a lot... in a negative way not only for a large unmanageable country like India but also for USA which is trying to prop it up against China. Besides, Americans cannot afford to look like losers in the midst of a terror war which has lasted for over ten years now.

August 24, 2012 at 5:17 pm |

Zainab_Uttar Pradesh_India

sorry guys it's not an original I copied from Internet. Pakistan have on poets or any kind of intellectuals to come up with something original. Most of our kids go to Madressas, learn Quaran, and some kid is smart then they learn triggering mechanism for explosives, and troll is required to carry bombs on their backs. GOD LESS PAKISTAN, Our home sweet home.

Allah O Akbar.

August 24, 2012 at 2:44 pm |

Zainab_Uttar Pradesh_India

oh may doG oh my doG, I made a mistake, I meant to say GOD BLESS PAKISTAN not GOD LESS PAKISTAN. me and my typing skills. can someone check I wrote okay this time?

August 24, 2012 at 2:54 pm |

Heath

Sue beats sending your kids to hindu ashrams in India where they are r@ped in their childhood. An inspiration from Mahama Gandhi.... a pedophile...I suppose

August 24, 2012 at 5:19 pm |

Heath

BTW your mistake is forgiven this time but don't repeat it. We know that 90% of Indian students in India cheat and pay off to pass exams. In foreign countries, the highest incidences of cheating is by students of Indian origin (hindus mostly). check it out

August 24, 2012 at 5:22 pm |

heath

ooooo and by the way my son is on moola's list. He was hand-picked for the suicide bombing job...and I am a proud mom of 10 suicide bombers.

August 24, 2012 at 7:49 pm |

Zainab_Uttar Pradesh_India

GOD BLESS PAKISTAN,
Land that we love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From Kashmir to Karachi and onto New Delhi,
And to the oceans, white with foam
GOD BLESS PAKISTAN, Our home sweet home.

The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.